


resolve

by epsiloneridani



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 03:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18002759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/pseuds/epsiloneridani
Summary: “I’m not afraid to die.”“I know,” Jorge says quietly. “That’s what concerns me.”----Emile. Jorge.Make your life count.





	resolve

“Give it here.”

It doesn’t affect Jorge, but the moment Emile speaks Carter snaps away from his locker to face them.

Everything about the way he’s standing says  _drop it_.

Not that that stops Emile.

Jorge isn’t moving. Emile’s helmet is in his hands and for all of the tension in the air he’s calm save the taut set of his shoulders. Kat catches on and shifts too, tries to catch Emile’s eye.

“Give it  _here_ ,” Emile says again, holding out his hand.

There’s an ugly scar on the side of the bucket, the kind that Kat can’t just patch and he’ll have to take to maintenance to get fixed properly. Jorge stares at it for a long beat and then lifts his gaze.

“No,” he says flatly.

“Jorge,” Carter interrupts, steeling his voice.  _Commander_. “Leave it alone.”

Jorge doesn’t answer, just gives Carter a look. His grip on the helmet spasms, tightens, and Emile almost growls at him to be  _careful, damn it_.

Carter tries to steer him toward the door with a careful hand on his arm but Jorge shoves him off so sharply Emile’s not sure he’ll still have all of his limbs attached if he tries again.

Carter blows out a breath. His voice drops. “I’ll speak to him,” he says, almost reaching out and then thinking better of it. “Let me handle this.”

Jorge snorts.

Carter grimaces and says something low enough this time that Emile can’t make out what he’s saying. Jun’s eyes widen slightly, though, and whatever Carter said must have gotten through because Jorge sets his jaw and shoves by and out the door.

He didn’t leave the helmet.

Emile’s halfway into the hall when a grip on his wrist yanks him back.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Jun hisses.

“Why’re your hands so damn cold?” Emile growls, and rips his arm away.

“The mean temperature of Cygnus V is less than 220 Kelvin,” Thom mutters. “Why the hell do you  _think_  his hands are cold?”

“We have  _armor_ ,” Emile says, like that’s what matters right now. Carter’s hovering with his arms crossed and Thom and Jun take the hint and follow Kat out.

Emile gives him half a glance and turns to stuff the rest of his gear in his locker, trying to ignore the way Carter’s gaze is boring into the back of his skull. The door jams and he kicks it.

It doesn’t close.

The clang echoes.

Emile bites his lip and forces himself to breathe steadily, forces himself to turn slowly and keep his arms at his sides and not folded across his chest. “Can I help you, Commander?”

“Don’t,” Carter says, and it’s his Commander voice again but edged now.

Emile shuts up. For a long moment, Carter just meets his gaze with a hard glare.

“You know damn well what you did was stupid,” Carter says. “I don’t have to tell you that.”

Emile opens his mouth to say  _it got the job done_  and snaps it shut just as quickly. “Yes, sir,” he says instead, driving his teeth into the inside of his cheek.

Carter grimaces, pinching the bridge of his nose. He takes a measured breath.

“Rosenda will be replacing you on Insurrection ops from here on out.”

Emile jolts. There were rumors about it for a while, a whispered word Kat or Carter said a little too loud – but he’d thought that was all. “Sir?”

“Rosenda-A344,” Carter repeats, and Emile wants to think there’s regret in his voice but with the way his ears are ringing he can’t be sure. “She’s more than capable.

He’s seen Rosenda around the  _Dawn_ ; she’s a solo-operative or a fireteam sub. Just not for him. Emile sets his jaw. “Commander, I don’t need a damn  _replacement_. I can—”

“This isn’t up for debate, Four.”

“You can’t just—”

“I will do whatever I have to,” Carter growls, “to bring this team back alive. You let your emotions get the best of you. You could have jeopardized the team  _and_  the op.”

“It worked,” Emile mutters. “…sir.”

“You could have gotten yourself killed. We had a  _plan_. Your job was to stick to it.”

Emile drives his teeth into the inside of his cheek. “Yes, sir.”

Carter looks, for the briefest flash, exhausted. He rests a hand on Emile’s shoulder and in the space of a breath says  _I don’t want to do this_  and  _I’m sorry that I have to_  without ever speaking a word. “Get some rest,” he orders quietly, and Emile’s heart sinks.

Carter’s anger is easy to deal with.

This is not anger.

“Yes, sir,” Emile says again.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Carter says. His Commander voice slips away and suddenly he’s the brother and not the leader. He holds for another second, squeezes Emile’s shoulder tightly, and lets his hand drop back to his side.

Then he’s gone.

Emile sinks down onto a bench and drives his knuckles into his eyes and breathes – breathes.

Thom is well past asleep by the time he finally slips into their quarters and Emile climbs onto his own bunk as quietly as he can and lies still, staring at the ceiling.

Reckless. Reckless. Reckless.

Replaced.

He doesn’t sleep.

“I can still do my damn job,” Emile says at breakfast the next morning, slapping his tray down across from Carter. “It won’t happen again, sir.”

Carter stiffens and glances at Kat. “Emile,” Carter says slowly, and Kat’s grip on her fork tightens. “I need you to understand that I trust you. But I don’t have any reason to believe you on this.”

“Sir—”

“Your track record speaks for itself: you’re too close to this,” Carter says. “I need you to take a step back.”

Emile grinds his teeth. “Carter—”

“This isn’t up for debate.”

Emile snaps to stand. Carter meets his gaze steadily. “Understood,” Emile grits out, seizing his tray and all but slamming it down on the nearest adjacent table. Too close. Too close.

Jun pauses with a fork halfway to his mouth and raises an eyebrow.

Emile scowls. “ _What?_ ”

“Nothing.”

“Sure,” Emile mutters. “’Course it is.”

Jun’s tapping, tapping, tapping until he realizes what he’s doing. He sets his fork aside and folds his hands together.

“Sometimes,” Jun says, “you need the step back.”

Emile grips his knife and doesn’t answer.

He sprawls on his bunk and stares at his half-finished report until his head starts pounding. There’s a box for  _justification of damage_ s and he rolls his eyes and crosses it out and flips to the next page.

He hasn’t seen his helmet since Jorge disappeared with it. It’s not in his locker, not in the armor storage unit, and not in the repair bay. None of the techs give him a second glance, not even when he tries to wave one of them over to ask them about it, and he scours the place himself until he realizes Kat might be the only one in the squad who knows her way around it.

“Haven’t seen it,” Kat shrugs, when he knocks on the door to her shared quarters to ask her about it. Carter’s hunched over a stack of data-padds in the corner, rubbing at his temples, and Emile briefly wonders if he’s the cause of the paperwork or if Kat got bored again and went digging through ONI’s latest and greatest bullshit. “Sorry.”

There’s one more option.

“Jun, if you don’t tell me where the hell he is—”

Jun glances up from his own ‘padd; everyone else is doing their reports, apparently. “I don’t know,” he says icily. “Jorge hasn’t said a damned word since we got back.”

Emile sighs. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

Jun quirks a brow.

“I need to get my helmet fixed or the Commander’ll kick my ass,” Emile growls. “So can you just…”

Jun stares at him for another long moment and sets his ‘padd aside.

“I can think of a few places.”

It takes two hours of wandering to find him.

Jorge is on the third observation deck, sitting directly in the center of the room with his arms folded over his knees. Emile hovers in the door and then crosses the space and drops down beside him.

Jorge glances at him. There’s the barest glint of a reflection from his other side, seething gold, and Emile almost reaches for it.

“Give it back,” he mutters, though it lacks any vitriol. “I need to get it fixed.”

“That’s already done,” Jorge says tersely.

They don’t talk much when they’re not trying to tear each other’s heads off but the silence still stings. “Look,” Emile says. “I don’t know what the hell you’re—”

“You could have gotten yourself killed.”

It stops him. Emile blinks, blinks. Jorge snorts and reaches over to lift the helmet. Spartan gear or not, in his hands it still seems small, like he could crush it on a whim. “You could have gotten yourself killed,” Jorge repeats without looking at him.

“I’ve already heard this from Carter.”

“Then hear it again.”

Emile scoffs. Jorge’s gaze snaps toward him, piercing even in the gloom, and Emile does his best not to flinch away. “Give it  _back_ ,” he says again.

Jorge holds his stare for another beat and then shoves the helmet at him all at once. “I took it to maintenance already,” he repeats.

He could walk away, let it go, but it feels like it would be wrong to leave. Emile pulls his knees toward his chest and rests his arms on them, turning the helmet over and over. It looks the same, like it was never damaged at all. “How’d you get them to leave the visor alone?”

“I asked politely.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“I heard about Rosenda.”

“Don’t pull your punches,” Emile says, wrinkling his nose.

Jorge doesn’t react, staring out at the stars streaking by. “Do you understand why Carter did it?”

“Yeah, I get it,” Emile growls. It aches, pulsing in his chest.  _Replaced. Replaced_. “Doesn’t mean I agree with it.”

“You could have gotten yourself killed.”

“I  _get it_ ,” Emile says. “But I—”

“ _Emile_ ,” Jorge snaps, and there’s fire and fury and something like grief in his voice. He takes a breath, takes a beat. When he speaks again, it’s softer, careful instead of combative. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

“I’m not afraid to die.”

“I know,” Jorge says quietly. “That’s what concerns me.”

Emile heaves a long sigh. His chest burns, burns, and he fights it back, fights it down. “I’ll do what I have to,” he says, gritting his teeth.

Jorge drops his head to his hands for a second, rubbing at his temples. It’s a gesture Emile’s seen Carter pull and he wonders briefly who got it from who. “If you’re going to die,” Jorge growls, looking back up, “make your life  _count_.”

“It would’ve—”

“Look me in the damn eyes and tell me that op was worth it,” Jorge hisses. “Was it about winning the war or was it about making them pay?”

Emile opens his mouth to answer, to refute it, but the words stop in his throat. The helmet’s heavy in his hands. “I did what I had to,” he says a long moment later, but it feels empty.

Jorge rests a hand on his shoulder. Emile thinks of shoving it away – and doesn’t. “Make your life count,” Jorge says, and it’s rougher this time, muted and bleeding. He holds for a moment – an eternity – and then lets go.

The helmet’s heavy. The helmet’s whole. “Thanks, brother,” Emile says, almost a whisper.

Jorge glances at him again. There’s a ghost of a smile on his face. “Of course,” he says softly, and puts an arm around Emile’s shoulders, firm and unyielding. “Of course.”

—


End file.
